The man behind the throne: Author George R.R. Martin eager to see his world again on Game of Thrones

TORONTO — He’s the man who lopped off Ned Stark’s head with a few keystrokes, but author George R.R. Martin is adamant that he doesn’t hate the Starks, the hard-luck noble family he has bruised, beaten and — in many cases — buried, in his popular fantasy series.

“I don’t! I love the Starks!” he protested loudly in a recent interview. “It’s not me who is cruel to them; it’s the world, it’s the Lannisters (and) the other characters — that’s what I always say. I don’t kill these characters, the other characters kill these characters.”

In person, the 63-year-old Martin could belong in Westeros, the land at the heart of his bestselling series, A Song of Ice and Fire (commonly known as the Game of Thrones). With a bushy, grey beard, suspenders, and a travelling cap, the bespectacled Martin almost looks like an adult-sized Hobbit, or wizened magician.

His gift with the written word has certainly enchanted millions, including the most recent instalment of the series, A Dance with Dragons, released in 2011. But Martin joins the series’ fans in his anticipation of Season 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, premiering April 1. He, too, wants to find out how his second novel, A Clash of Kings, will be brought to life on the small screen.

“I’ve seen the audition tapes, in most cases, of course, (but) I want to see some of these new characters (in action),” he said. Joining the already vast cast will be a number of fan favourites from the novels, including: female knight Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie); two new contenders for the Iron Throne, Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) and his brother Renly (Gethin Anthony); a mysterious dark priestess named Melisandre (Carice van Houten); and an aspiring queen named Margaery Tyrell (The Tudors’ Natalie Dormer).

As the epic struggle for power renews on TV, Martin nervously awaits one of the season’s epic moments. Martin himself penned the script for Episode 9, Blackwater, which will feature one of the most epic clashes of the whole series. The battle takes part in and around King’s Landing and its adjoining waterway, with utter chaos and destruction on three fronts: land, sea and city walls.

“I’m on tenterhooks to see what sort of (production) values (were used) and how much . . . they were able to capture on screen,” Martin said. “The Battle of the Blackwater is a gigantic set piece in the book; it occupies 12 chapters, or something like that. It fills up the entire episode, and we had to cut certain elements of it, or it would have demanded a Lord of the Rings-style budget.

“Of course, we (have) a high budget for a TV show, but we are low-budget for a feature film,” he added, noting the director of the episode, Neil Marshall (The Descent), has a reputation for getting tremendous value out of a budget. Martin was a TV screenwriter (Beauty and the Beast, the 1980s’ Twilight Zone episodes, etc.) before he became a world-famous author, so he has a keen eye for translating the printed word to the screen.

Front and centre in the Blackwater battle will be “The Imp”, Tyrion Lannister (played by Emmy-winner Peter Dinklage), who is the Hand of the King in the new season — the position that, notoriously, cost Ned Stark (Sean Bean) his life in Season 1.

“While most hour-long TV dramas are filmed in less than 10 days, (that) episode took about a month of wet, muddy night shoots,” Dan Weiss told Entertainment Weekly. “Peter didn’t have to act tired, because, by 5 a.m., (he’d) had . . . rain pouring on him for eight hours straight.”

Fans will also get their first look beyond the series’ giant, famous wall in Season 2. Ned’s bastard son, Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington, journeys into that harsh, savage landscape —_one that was brought to life on-camera in Iceland.

“Iceland is one of (those) magical places,” Martin said, lamenting that his schedule didn’t allow him to visit the set on Season 2, which was also filmed in Dublin, Ireland, and Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Martin admits that executive-producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss have their hands full with his source material.

“I knew they’d have to cut some characters,” Martin said. “I literally do have a cast of thousands, and it gets bigger with each successive book, so there is no way they can get all of that in. As it is, I think we have the largest cast on television, and it’s only going to get larger. We’ll see how they continue to deal with that challenge.”

The show has two distinct audiences: fans of the novels and those who only know Game of Thrones through TV. He said the “two masters” can be hard to please, their needs and wants often in opposition.

“The elimination of a character, (or) the introduction of a new character, is likely not to please the majority of (readers),” Martin said. “(But) the (TV-only audience) . . . they want a story they can understand and they want to know who all these characters are. They can’t refer to a genealogy in the back of a book, because they don’t have the books. You can’t confuse them too much with a multiplicity of characters. “

Fans of the novels are eagerly awaiting Martin’s final two instalments of the seven-part series. In particular, they are eager to learn more about the White Walkers — or The Others — a mysterious, undead race seemingly bent on humanity’s destruction.

“(We’ll learn more about their) history, certainly, but I don’t know about culture,” he said. “I don’t know if they have a culture.”

Martin’s books — and the series — stand out for their grey-era morality and multi-layered characters. Very few fit cleanly into the fantasy tradition of shining, brave heroes and pure, black-hearted villains. Martin changes the character point of view in each chapter. Sometimes readers are confronted with a new POV, which can offer startling insight into a character’s previous actions and mindset.

“I think everybody is the hero of their own story,” he said. “I’m sure if you interviewed Charlie Manson or Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy — or were inside their heads or could read their thoughts — (their actions) would all make perfect sense (to them). . . . It’s only in comic books that the Red Skull gets up and says, ‘I’m evil; what evil things will I do today?’. . . Real people have rationalizations or justifications or motivations for their actions — even the most terrible things. They have reasons to explain why they had no choice, why they had to do it, why it was the only way to go. And we’re all grey in real life. I try to make my characters grey in books, because I am trying to reflect real life.

For those fans eager for answers to the series’ big questions — Who will be the ultimate ruler on the Iron Throne? Who are Jon Snow’s real parents? — Martin’s lips are firmly sealed.

“Like, I’m really going to say that in a book signing after I have been hiding it . . . for decades now,” he said with a hearty laugh.

These days, Martin is hard at work on the sixth instalment of his series, The Winds of Winter. But someday, when the final two books are behind him, fans might be able to read a “blooper reel.”

Martin said he often rewrites scenes — whether the wording, events within, or the character viewpoint. Sometimes he’ll write two complete versions of the same scene as different characters, with only one making it to print.

“There are also sequences that never appeared in the books in any form whatsoever. It may be whole chapters, or it may just be a paragraph or two,” he said. “Some(day), if I kick off, someone might find all this blooper reel on my computer . . . all the dead scenes that didn’t make it into the books.”

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The man behind the throne: Author George R.R. Martin eager to see his world again on Game of Thrones